Heating energy conservation is an important part of China's energy conservation strategy. China's coal-fired heating is reducing and heating energy conservation policy is enhancing but not in a significant manner. This paper aims to figure out the actual realization of Chinese governments' ex ante expectations towards energy conservation policy in the heating industry. A trans-log production function is established incorporating asymmetric energy price decomposition and seemingly unrelated regression method is adopted to estimate the own-price and cross-price elasticity of factor input demands of the heating industry, then the direct energy rebound effect is estimated within China's heating industry. The results indicate that the actual energy-saving effect of the heating industry in China only realizes 60.04% of the theoretical energy-saving goal. Energy rebound in the heating industry in China is not only influenced by technical progress but also influenced by its state-owned monopoly status. (C) 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.